Attitudes and Behaviour in the Second Referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon

Attitudes and Behaviour in the Second Referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon Richard Sinnott and Johan A. Elkink Geary Institute and School of Politics and International Relations University College Dublin Report prepared for the Department of Foreign Affairs July 2010 Introduction Twice within the last decade, Irish government proposals to ratify new EU treaties have been defeated by referendum (the referendum on the Treaty of Nice in 2001 and that on the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008). Both outcomes were reversed in follow-on referendums within a year or so of the defeat. Although the net outcome in each case was that Ireland could proceed to ratify the EU treaties in question, the experience was not one that any Irish government would wish to repeat. In this context, our report on attitudes and behaviour in the first Lisbon referendum concluded by noting the “undeniable need” to address the issue of public support for the process of European integration “not just now and not just in the run-up to a referendum but on an on-going and long-term basis”. 1 Our ability to analyse Irish attitudes to European integration and the behaviour consequent on such attitudes has been significantly enhanced by the decision to conduct a post- referendum poll not just after the 2008 referendum NO but also after the 2009 referendum YES. Beginning with a summary of the main trends in voting in Irish EU referendums, this report analyses the sources of the YES and NO votes and of abstention in the 2009 Lisbon referendum. Fieldwork for the poll was conducted by Millward Brown Lansdowne between 20 th and 23 rd November 2009. The poll, which had a sample size of 1,002 respondents, was designed to be representative of all persons aged 18+ who were eligible to vote. Quotas were set according to the 2006 census, based on region, sex, age and socio-economic group. The advantages of a post referendum survey of the kind just described lie in the wealth of data it provides. The most fundamental is the evidence of reported voting behaviour including not just how the respondents voted in 2009 but also their recall of whether and how they voted in the first Lisbon referendum the previous year. Media use also falls into this category of reported behaviour as do various aspects of campaign exposure. The survey also makes it possible to measure a wide array of attitudes, ranging from sense of national and European identity to particular preferences regarding policies and processes in the European arena. Finally the survey enables us to also relate voting behaviour to the demographic fundamentals of age, sex and status. 1 Richard Sinnott, Johan A. Elkink, Kevin O’Rourke and James McBride, ‘Attitudes and Behaviour in the Referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon: Report prepared for the Department of Foreign Affairs’, 6 March 2009, pp. 1-61, www.foreignaffairs.gov.ie/uploads/documents/ucd%20geary%20institute%20report.pdf 1 Trends and in voting and vote outcomes in EU referendums in Ireland The exceptional nature of the two defeats on the issue of the ratification of EU treaty changes is clearly illustrated in Figure 1, which shows a YES vote ranging from 62 per cent to 83 per cent in six of the eight referendums, compared to 46 and 47 per cent in the first Nice and first Lisbon referendums respectively. The similarity in the size of the percentage YES votes in these two referendums might suggest that the behaviour of the electorate in them was more or less the same and that all that was needed in response to the Lisbon referendum defeat in 2008 was to apply the lessons that had been learned in the two referendums on the Nice treaty back in 2001 and 2002. Figure 1: Yes and No percentage of valid poll in European Referendums in Ireland 1972-2009 (%) 100% 90% 83% 80% 70% 69% 67% 70% 62% 63% 60% 54% 53% 50% 47% 40% 46% No % of vote Yes % of vote 38% 37% 30% 33% 30% 31% 20% 10% 17% 0% Accession to EU Single European Maastricht Treaty Amsterdam Nice Treaty I Nice Treaty II Lisbon Treaty I Lisbon Treaty II 1972 Act 1987 1992 Treaty 1998 2001 2002 2008 2009 Source of data: Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Referendum Results 1972-2009 Note: Valid votes only. The assumption of a strong similarity between Nice I and Lisbon I is, 2 however, an oversimplification. It is true that the results of the two referendums in terms of first preference vote were very similar. It is also true, as we shall see below, that knowledge, or the lack of it, played an important role in bringing about those similar results. 3 In several other respects, however, the first Nice and first Lisbon referendums were actually very 2 Roman numerals I and II are used to designate the first and second Nice referendums and the first and second Lisbon referendums. 3 We shall look at the similarities and differences in the role of knowledge in all four recent EU referendums presently. 2 different. The main differences lay (a) in the rate of abstention (66 per cent in the first Nice contest compared to 47 per cent in the first Lisbon one) and (b) in the size of the NO vote — 19 per cent of the electorate in Nice I compared to 28 per cent in Lisbon I (see Figure 2). This makes it clear that YES campaigners faced a much bigger challenge in the second Lisbon referendum compared to the challenge they had faced in the second Nice referendum. In the second Nice referendum, the challenge lay mainly in getting out the vote. In contrast, the challenge in the second Lisbon referendum was mainly a matter of reversing the significant surge in support for the NO side that, as Figure 2 shows, was a marked feature of the vote that rejected the treaty in 2008. Figure 2: Yes, No and Abstained in European Referendums in Ireland as a percentage of the electorate 1972-2009 100 90 30 80 43 41 45 47 51 56 70 66 60 50 Abstain % of electorate 58 40 25 40 Yes % of electorate 39 34 No % of electorate 31 30 31 16 20 28 21 10 18 19 18 19 12 13 0 Accession to EU Single Europe Act Maastricht Treaty Amsterdam Treaty Nice Treaty I 2001: Nice Treaty II 2002: Lisbon Treaty 2008: Lisbon Treaty 2009: '72: Yes 83%, No '87: Yes 70%, No '92: Yes 69%, No '98: Yes 62%, No Yes 46%, No 54% Yes 63%, No 37% Yes 47%, No 53% Yes 67%, No 33% 17% 30% 31% 38% Source of data : Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Referendum Results 1972-2009 Furthermore, while the fundamental issue at stake was the same in the 2008 and 2009 referendums, both the policy context in which the question was being asked and the political/economic situation in which the referendum was taking place were very different. By late 2009, the international banking crisis and the ensuing economic recession had exposed a property bubble and a national banking crisis and a full blown fiscal crisis and a substantial loss of international competitiveness as the underlying vulnerabilities of what had been seen as the indomitable Celtic Tiger. By autumn 2009 Irish people’s positive evaluation of the Irish economy had plummeted from over 80 per cent at the height of the Celtic Tiger boom to a mere 12 per cent — see Figure 3. Other countries had also suffered a 3 fall in economic confidence but the Irish fall was from a higher crest to a much lower trough. Other factors also affected the context of the second referendum, notably a series of legal guarantees which the Government had negotiated with the other EU member states. The campaign leading up to the second referendum was also very different, involving as it did the participation of a variety of civil society groups mainly supporting the Treaty. This background will need to be taken into account as we seek to identify the factors that influenced the voters in the second Lisbon referendum. Figure 3: Positive evaluations of current economic situation in respondents own country, Ireland and EU average 2004-2009 (%) 100 90 80 70 60 50 Ireland EU average 40 30 20 10 0 Autumn Spring Autumn Spring Autumn Spring Autumn Spring Autumn Spring Autumn 2004 2005 2005 2006 2006 2007 2007 2008 2008 2009 2009 Source of data: Eurobarometer 62 to 72. Note: Question was not asked in Autumn 2005, Spring 2006 or Spring 2008. We begin by documenting the flow of the vote—where the votes came from and where they went, including the uncast votes of those in the electorate who abstained. Table 1 shows how YES voters, NO voters and abstainers in the first Lisbon referendum behaved when it came to the second contest. 4 It is clear that the YES vote remained exceptionally solid—87 percent of 2008 YES voters voted YES again in 2009. The big change occurred 4 For all tables with percentages and counts, a weighting scheme has been applied. Because there is a significantly larger proportion of respondents who report having voted than the actual turnout, and a significantly larger proportion reporting they voted YES, a weight has been applied to bring these proportions in line with the population. The regression analyses below, however, have not been weighted. Weights based on the dependent variable itself, e.g. to correct for having more YES voters when explaining why people vote YES, only affect the estimate of the intercept, not of the effects of the various independent variables.

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